Five groups eligible to pursue lighthouse

MILBRIDGE – Five groups or agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, have met the eligibility qualifications to make a formal application to acquire the remote Petit Manan Lighthouse off the coast of Milbridge.

Now owned by the U.S. Coast Guard, the lighthouse has been deemed “to be excess to the needs of the federal government,” according to the U.S. General Services Administration’s announcement of its availability in July.

Interested parties had until Sept. 14 to make known their interest to the GSA’s Office of Property Disposal in Boston. Last week, the GSA notified five groups that they were eligible to proceed with the application process.

In addition to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, four private, nonprofit organizations, all within Maine, are on the list.

They are the Borman Family Foundation of Oakland, with Donald B. Borman as director; Elliotsville Plantation Inc. of Portland, with Rebecca Rundquist as project manager and Roxanne Quimby as executive director; Friends of Petit Manan Lighthouse Inc. of Bangor, with Paul A. Weeks as director; and the New England Lighthouse Foundation of Wells, with Tim Harrison as president.

The groups now have until Dec. 20 to make a more complete application.

The National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000 authorizes the government’s transfer of historic lighthouses at no cost to eligible entities for park, recreational, cultural, historic and educational uses.

The lighthouse is located on a low, rocky island 21/2 miles off Petit Manan Point, or some 10 miles seaward of Milbridge.

The 119-foot granite tower, built in 1855, is located within the 3,335-acre Petit Manan Wildlife Refuge, full of puffins, terns and other seabirds.

Petit Manan Island and all the other buildings on it already are owned by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and overseen from its Milbridge office. The other structures on the island include the 1875 keeper’s house, the 1876 engine house, the 1887 fog signal building, a rain shed and a boathouse. The Coast Guard will continue to operate the light and foghorn as navigational aids, but the new owner is expected to maintain the structure.

Charles Blair, manager of the Petit Manan Wildlife Refuge, had been an informational contact point during the three months that the public was invited to show interest in the lighthouse.

Many called Blair, but few had the financial ability to land the lighthouse and, apparently, live out their dream.

“Everyone wants to come and be a caretaker,” Blair said Tuesday. “They just want to live there. But they don’t want the responsibility for the cost to maintain it.”

There are other limitations to owning a lighthouse, besides financial. All maintenance work for this lighthouse must be done between September and April, because seabirds that use the island for breeding cannot be disturbed during the summer months.

The island is not open to the public because of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s ongoing seabird restoration work.